***UPDATE 11-10-2015****
- Download the new portal here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=49556
- Office Install Instructions here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt622142.aspx
****UPDATE END****
Today the Microsoft Service Manager team announced that Service Manager’s UR8 will include the new HTML 5 self-service portal. Here is the link to that blog post: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2015/10/21/ur8-release-date.aspx
This is very exciting news as we know a new improved portal for Service Manager has been highly requested for a long time. In this blog post I will give a quick tour of the new portal that is coming. Here is what you see when you first login with some descriptions of the different areas:
![clip_image001[4]](https://www.buchatech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/clip_image0014.png "clip_image001[4]")
Menu
You will find the fly out menu on the left side of the portal. On the top half are the navigation menu with contact info on the lower half.
![clip_image002[4]](https://www.buchatech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/clip_image0024.png "clip_image002[4]")
Announcements
The Service Manager team has brought announcements back to the portal.
Service Catalog
Below is a screenshot of the Service Catalog the core of the self-service portal. You will see the Service Offerings listed in an easy way. As you click on a Service Offering you will see its Request Offerings pop out on the right.
![clip_image004[4]](https://www.buchatech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/clip_image0044.png "clip_image004[4]")
Here is what a Request Offering looks like:
![clip_image005[4]](https://www.buchatech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/clip_image0054.png "clip_image005[4]")
Notice on the request offering that you can favorite them by clicking on the heart icon.
![clip_image006[4]](https://www.buchatech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/clip_image0064.png "clip_image006[4]"){kind=small}
My Requests
End users have the ability to access requests they have submitted as shown in the screenshot below.
![clip_image007[4]](https://www.buchatech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/clip_image0074.png "clip_image007[4]")
My Activities
There is an area for activities to approve/reject, mark as completed/failed etc.
![clip_image008[4]](https://www.buchatech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/clip_image0084.png "clip_image008[4]")
Help Article (Knowledge Base)
The Help Articles area is a huge improvement over the last portal. Now the help articles show right in the web browser. They also can be rated and or favorite.
![clip_image009[4]](https://www.buchatech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/clip_image0094.png "clip_image009[4]")
The following screenshot shows that you can use keywords to scope down the help articles. This is helpful to narrow down to a specific topic.
![clip_image010[4]](https://www.buchatech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/clip_image0104.png "clip_image010[4]")
The next two screenshots show what an internal and external help article looks like in the new portal.